Sales of pre-owned homes stalled out in November, plunging to their slowest pace in half a year only one month after hitting a 2014 high. Despite the stumble, home resales in November were still up 2.1 percent from year-ago levels, making it just the second month in 2014 to see sales rise year-over-year. It's been a year of starts and stops for home sales, which have struggled under the weight of rising mortgage rates (a trend that has reversed in recent months), a tighter lending environment, declining affordability, and a lack of housing stock available for buyers.

The number of listings last month was approximately 1.87 million, down 2.7 percent annually and 7.9 percent monthly. The decline compares to Redfin's latest analysis, which showed an unexpected bump in inventory from new listings. Redfin's data measures a narrower list of markets nationwide.

Annual price appreciation regularly topped 10 percent nationwide in 2012 and 2013, fueled in large part by high levels of investor activity and a shortage of homes on offer to interested buyers. As of July, yearly growth was down to 5.6 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Price Indices.

More interesting, Redfin said, was the shift in supply and demand dynamics: Even as new listings plunged 9.3 percent—nearly triple the average July-to-August decline—numbers of customers touring homes and making offers rose, demonstrating buyers aren't backing off.

Despite the currently slower environment, RE/MAX CEO Margaret Kelly is keeping a positive view on recent figures, noting that August sales were still more than 10 percent higher than in 2012 and 17.8 percent higher than in 2008, when the company began reporting on monthly activity.

Though pending sales were down 2.1 percent compared to a year ago, July's figure was the highest since August 2013 and was the third straight month in which the index measured above 100, a value NAR considers to be an average level of contract activity.